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The Major League Baseball All-Star Game has gone from its humble beginnings in 1933 to a multi-day event that includes the Home Run Derby, the All-Star Futures Game, and many other activities. Four members of the Out of the Park Developments team were at Progressive Field in Cleveland this year to showcase Out of the […]

Hi everybody First of all we are happy to announce that we got ourself a forum over at http://gmgames.org ( http://forums.gmgame...otball-manager/ ) so please check it out and use that for inputs on the game. We are also glad to announce the release of version 0.1.2 which can be downloaded here on itch.io. In the couple of weeks since last release we have focused most on implementing all GUI screens. This means that almost all screens are done we "just" need to implement all the logic behind them. One example of this is the transfer portal where we have started on it and also coded a lot of the functionality but we are still missing the core logic behind why a student wants a transfer, why he selects a specific college for transfer and the logic about immediate transfer...

Hello everyone, This is our first post on itch.io, so we hope you like the idea we have for a game. Basically we want to create a College Football Manager simulation game where you will be handed the control of a college football team. Your goal is to win as many bowls and conference championships as possible. The game is inspired by the original Football Manager (Soccer) games. You will be able to handle both the depth chart and tactics for your selected team. Each year you should also recruit new high schoolers to play for your team while you try to handle the maximum amount of scholarships you are able to hand out. The game is still on the idea stage but we have already implemented some parts of the game, so please let us know if you think a game like this is a good idea :-) We have at...

Hi everybody, This past week have mainly been used for updating parts of the GUI and some refactoring of the code. On the GUI side we have optimized the way recruits are shown on the screen, so it should now be easier to navigate through the all recruits. We have also optimized the way recruits selects which college offer to take. For the emails view we have also done a couple of updates so it is now able to contain images. It sounds like an easy task, but it turned out to take much more time than expected. We have also looked into the GUI for simulating a game, but we are not sure that the changes we have made are actually working, so that might be changed soon again. Of new features we have started on the transfer portal but it is still very much in the upstart phase. We are also gonna...

Get Ready For Our Newest College Football Game

We are excited to announce that DDS: College Football 2019 has moved into its final pre-release stage and is ready for our FirstAccess program. FirstAccess allows you to download beta versions of the game after you pre-order and receive a license key and helps our company by getting our game in front of not only more testers but people who are invested in the game itself by pre-ordering.

As always we are offering some special pre-order savings for our valued customers. You can pre-order DDS:CF 2019 in our webstore right now and we have the following coupon codes available to use. The pre-order window only lasts a short time so don’t delay.

Anyone is able to use coupon code CF19PRE – that will entitle you to 15% off as a pre-order discount

If you purchased DDS:CF 2018 from wolverinestudios.com we offer a bigger discount to show our appreciation for your loyalty year after year and in ordering directly from us. Those customers can use coupon code CF19LOYAL and will receive 30% off for upgrading to CF19. In order to receive this discount you MUST enter all of your personal information first including the SAME EMAIL address you used when purchasing CF18 and then enter and apply the coupon code.

For those who purchased DDS:CF 2018 from wolverinestudios.com in the past 30 days we’re offering a 70% upgrade discount since you just purchased CF18. Follow the same instructions as above but use coupon code CF19NEW for your discount.

In addition to getting some big savings and immediately getting a license key and being able to download the beta and participate in our FirstAccess program if you wish (its totally optional but we appreciate the help) you also will receive a FREE key for the game on Steam whenever it becomes available there. So if you prefer to play on Steam, that’s fine – pre-order here and save yourself some money and you’ll be able to contact us for a key when its ready. Remember this offer is good ONLY for those who pre-order. Once the FirstAccess program ends and the game is officially launched this offer will go away.

If you want a quick look at a few of the new items in Draft Day Sports: College Football 2019 check out our earlier blog posting on it here.

We can’t wait for you to check out the game and see it all for yourself. As we said, your chance to save on our pre-order is limited so don’t waste another minute. Get to the webstore, pre-order Draft Day Sports: College Football 2019 and #BuildYourDynasty today!

College sports live here – simulate your favorite school all year round!

As the calendar gets ready to flip over to 2019 we’re ready to bring you the big news about our college lineup. Our teams have been hard at work on Draft Day Sports: College Football 2019 and Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2019 and we’re going to bring you a quick look at some of the great new things to expect from both franchises. As always we want to reward our loyal WolverineStudios.com customers so there will be pre-order discounts and FirstAccess open beta testing and the great news is BOTH games will be getting ready for this stage very, very soon. Let’s start on the gridiron and talk about some of the improvements there.

The first thing you will see when starting a new career is the new “Career Mode”. This mode gives you the opportunity to create your head coach and then face the pressure of living up to expectations. Fall short and get canned. This brand new feature brings a whole new dimension to DDS: College Football – just don’t get fired because who knows where you might end up!

We’re also excited for some big changes to recruiting in the game. First, players can now transfer and you will have an opportunity to recruit those transfers prior to the start of each new season. We also know that recruiting isn’t necessarily everyone’s favorite past time so we’ve added both an auto-recruit and auto-scout mode to help you do some or all of the dirty work on the recruiting trail. By the way, take a look at the brand new user interface which puts all of the game links at a glance on the left side so that anything you want to find in the game is just a quick click away.

For all you coach wanna-be’s out there you’ll be in heaven with the new features in the depth chart and strategy sections. Fans of Draft Day Sports: Pro Football 2019 will appreciate these additions as you will now have the ability to setup multiple packages on offense and defense, see how all of your players line up in the formations in graphical format, setup the percentage you want to use each formation, create custom playbooks full of your favorite plays and analyze how each play works out for you. You’ll feel just like a real head coach!

That’s only some of the upgrades in the 2019 version. Don’t forget all of the other amazing features of DDS:CF like the ability to watch your games unfold in exciting 2D gameplay, new customization options to let you have control over prestige, training and camp improvements and of course the ability to send your players to the big leagues by exporting them for use in Draft Day Sports: Pro Football 2019. You can follow your favorite players from 5 star recruit all the way to hall of fame player!

College Football fans aren’t the only ones in for a treat this year – Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2019 will surely delight whether you’re a hardcore fan or only tune in for March Madness. Our beautiful 2019 UI has made it’s way to DDS:CB as well. Everything you want to access is available with a quick click and we’ve reorganized some screens like the recruiting screen to make it a little bit easier to find what you’re looking for and not be too overwhelmed.

There is not a college game out there with the in-depth recruiting options of DDS: College Basketball but we know that for some people they want to get right to the games and not worry about recruiting. In the past you could assign those tasks to the AI but you would still have to click through every week of the summer while camps and recruiting took place. We made a big change this year giving you the opportunity on the first day of the season to skip right through the summer and get right to the games! You can now temporarily hand over control of recruiting and practice decisions to the AI and take back control when it’s time for the season to start. For those of you who wanted to get right down to business each season- this one’s for you!

The most exciting part of college basketball is that it’s fast paced and decisions have to be made in a split-second. That’s why we are so excited about our new 2D interface. Rolling over the big logo on the side will now give you access to the usual options like calling timeouts and working the ref but you’ll see some brand new options guaranteed to make the coach in you giddy with excitement. There is now a stall option that will force your team to go into a slow down for as long as its selected. You can use it to close out a half or a game, to just slow down the pace and get control of what’s going on or to drive your opponent nuts by slowing the pace to a crawl. You will also see the “on score” checkbox area which will allow you to call a time-out immediately after a made basket letting you be able to set up your press, make a key sub or go into a full court man to man press to make sure you get a quick foul if needed.

You’ll see some other new buttons there – now you will find buttons for offense, defense, matchups and team stats which will display those items in the side window allowing you to make changes on the fly as opposed to having to go to the subs/coach popup like before. This makes for a much more seamless in game experience and makes it far easier to make changes as the gameplay takes place.

Those are some of our favorite new things but it’s far from all. We’ve made (and are continuing to make) so many improvements based on user feedback. You’ll see things like a new sandbox mode so that you can jump from any team you want on a year to year basis, our new coach and player faces (with coach suits and player jerseys) are coming over from DDS: Pro Basketball 2019, you will get an email explaining why your request from the board was denied, an enhanced summer camp preview magazine to help you better see who has interest in your school and tons of other tweaks including reworking the sim engine to make wing players more effective scorers and more realistic in terms of their shot distribution – things like using a dribble to get a mid-range shot instead of shooting too many three pointers.

We rely on our community for improvement ideas in all of our games and we are confident once you get these games going you’ll find just how many areas something (large or small) has been added based on a request from our amazing community members. We can’t wait to get you back at your favorite school for the 2019 campaign – stay tuned as you will not want to miss the pre-order and upgrade discounts as well as the opportunity to get your hands on these great games before anyone else does!

We hope you’re excited about these new additions. If you want to discuss or ask questions don’t forget you can hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or even in our new Slack Channel. We look forward to seeing how you #BuildYourDynasty with our new college football and college basketball games coming in 2019!

FHM 5 delivers new community-requested features including dramatically improved tactics, an all-new interface, player and staff personalities, new team chemistry, accurate 2018-19 season rosters, online leagues and more. The release date is October 5, 2018.

[Contents of this story are pieces from the OOTP Developments Announcement]

Here’s what you’ll get in FHM 5:

Up-to-Date 2018-19 NHL® Rosters

Every NHL® team features accurate rosters full of freshly rated players, along with the real clubs, awards, and trophies associated with the greatest hockey league in the world. Up-to-date rosters are also available for the dozens of global leagues, competitions, and tournaments in FHM 5.

Improved Tactics

New, deep tactics that allow unprecedented control over how your entire team performs, down to each line and individual player.

New User Interface

We redesigned the user interface to make it easier and faster to do what you want to do while you’re managing your team.

New Chemistry Dynamics

Mix and match players to find the right team chemistry that will maximize performance on the ice.

New Player and Staff Personalities

Set your team up for long-term success by hiring staff members with the right personalities and paying attention to how players’ personalities mesh with each other.

Online Leagues

Compete against friends around the world and decide who has the best hockey strategy.

And More!

FHM 5 allows you to build your hockey franchise into a perennial Stanley Cup® winner YOUR way, in the current 2018-19 season or back through the entire history of the sport – all the way back to the very beginning! Different eras demand different tactics, and it’s up to you to put together the best club possible for every era.

When Out of the Park Baseball 15 debuted the ability to play out games in 3D stadiums, Mike Silva found his calling and began creating historical 3D stadiums and sharing them with others. (You can find the complete list on our forum.) “I had always had a love for baseball stadiums and their unique appearances, […]

Growing up in the 1950s, we did not have PlayStations, Nintendos, or Xboxes—no video games at all. We did not have 150 channels on cable or satellite TV or VHS movies or DVDs. We had no surround sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, and no Internet. But we did have our imaginations, and we made up games. One game I played was dice baseball. In college in 1970, I programmed a baseball computer game based on my dice baseball game that has been accepted in the Baseball Hall of Fame as the oldest baseball game computer code. How did this journey happen?

When I was about ten years old, my cousin George introduced me to a game that involved rolling two dice; their combinations when tossed equated to hits, doubles, homers, or outs. I will always remember the dice combinations: two is a home run, three a double, four an out, and so on through twelve. The probabilities of the dice combinations with hits were comparable to a typical player’s season batting average. In my junior high school days, I played this game hundreds of times and began keeping cumulative statistics for batter and team records. I played a full thirty-two-game season with all the National League teams, and I even played an All-Star game after each team had played sixteen games by selecting the batters and pitchers with the bestindividual records.

I am convinced that the skills I learned from adding up batter’s records and calculating batting averages from my simple game prepared me for a business career that involves measures and metrics. It led to my authoring books and presenting seminars in over thirty international cities annually on how organizations can improve their performance. As a manager of performancemanagement solutions at SAS, a world leader in business intelligence and analytics software, I observe incredible computer applications, ranging from biotech industry drug testing analysis to retailers forecasting line-item inventory for tens of thousands of shelf-items in hundreds, sometimes thousands, of stores.

From child’s play to game theory

During my junior year at Cornell University, I took a game theory course taught by Henry David Block, a famous professor who wrote computer chess games that played against computerized chess games written by Russian professors. I majored in industrial engineering and operations research, which was a demanding curriculum on top of being a varsity football letterman.

Professor Block, with his classic white Santa Claus beard, was an inspiration to me. His course, titled Bionics and Robots, was fun and less stressful than other engineering courses. For my term project in this course, I wrote a computer program using a programming language that was a blend of COBOL and FORTRAN—two “ancient” programming languages. The computer codeapplied a random number generator (in place of the two dice) for one hundred possible outcomes of batter hits that simulated every batter’s at-bat for the 1969 National League season. I still have the original hard-copy print-out on that big paper with the paper-feed holes—a true relic of the past. It was programmed on IBM punch cards that you had to walk to the data center to submit your card deck. This program’s deck of punch cards was a foot thick.

My classmate, Pete Watzka (who, coincidently, led the 1971 Ivy League baseball conference in batting average), calibrated each player to his 1969 batting average. Our computer program also differentiated batting power between single and home-run hitters, and for each game we adjusted the players “down or up” based on the quality of the opposing pitcher’s 1969 record.

Our computer program simulated all of the games played for each National League team. Pete and I enjoyed changing the input variables of players and pitchers and seeing how the outcomes changed each time we processed a computer run. On May 13, 1970, Pete and I submitted the “final” computer run for the course paper. The fun outcome of that run was that the team’s win-loss percentage records were very similar to their actual season records. The New York Mets won the league title. Rico Carty of the Atlanta Braves had a .340 batting average (compared to Carty’s actual .342 average), beating Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds for the batting title. Phil Niekro of the Atlanta Braves ranked as best pitcher with a 32-5 win-loss record. Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates led in home runs with forty-four and edged out Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Giants for the Most Valuable Player award— the final equation in the computer program. Professor Block gave us an A, but the real pleasure was programming the code for the game.

The evolution of baseball computer games

Computer games have clearly become a big industry, and not just for kids— adults play them too. Over the years, computer baseball games have become increasingly sophisticated. For example, Sim Dynasty Baseball allows one to draft a fictitious franchise, set the rotation and lineup, groom prospects in the farm system, and make blockbuster trades. Three times a day, its custom designed Artificial Baseball Engine (affectionately named Abe) simulates the games and compiles complete box scores, play-by-play, and year-to-date statistics.

Another game, Baseball Mogul, puts the player in complete control of any professional baseball team. One can begin in any year you choose, from 1901 to 2008, with the full roster of your favorite team—or an entirely fictional team of your own creation. You can negotiate trades and sign free agents to build a dynasty.

At the core of any computer sport game is the “spin of the dial” or “dice roll” that determines the next outcome. In the game that Pete and I created, a few lines of comport code brought the next batter to the plate and processed the random number generator that was cross-referenced to that at-bat outcome. Arguably, today’s baseball computer games evolved from that little kernel of computer code. You can imagine the thrill of now knowing what we did not realize at the time, that Pete and I were pioneers by developing that first computer code. Our accomplishment is obviously not on the same scale as the Wright brothers, but it is a great feeling.

The journey to the baseball hall of fame

I have been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research for over twenty-five years. A few years ago, after seeing so many computerized sports games in the marketplace, I posted a question on the SABR Web site asking whether anyone knew about the history of computerized baseball. I received a reply to contact the Baseball Hall of Fame.

MLB employees introduced me to James L. Gates Jr., the Library Director of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He was invaluable in guiding me through the process of submitting the computer code and course paper Pete and I wrote to be judged whether it qualified as an artifact. It was accepted, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum mailed me the official Deed of Gift that officially recognizes the computer code for baseball gaming purposes.

Pete Watzka and I are honored to have been early pioneers in creating computer code for baseball gaming. Little did I know as a youngster that dice baseball games would evolve into an industry of computerized sports games, or that developing a computer program replicating my childhood pastime would influence my career in the application of automated information processing. I am now approaching sixty years old. Occasionally, I ask myself what legacy I want to be known for after I have passed on. Several of my options involve my business career. But having an accomplishment of mine archived in the Baseball Hall of Fame brings a smile to my face.

It is time to get ready to cut down the nets and DDS: College Basketball 2018 is bringing you the biggest and best version ever to let you fulfill your dreams of taking your favorite school to the top. So get ready to hop on the recruiting trail, coach – here’s a look at ten of the newest additions to the number one college basketball franchise on the market.

This press release is written and courtesy of the Wolverine Studios development company with slight modifications:

1) 2017 League Conversions

Right out of the gate we’ve got some big news – those dynasties you’ve been building with CB:2017….well keep on building them! For the first time ever you’ll be able to upgrade your league files to the new version!

2) Coach Rating Tracking and Improved Increases

We’ve put work into making the increase in ratings over time better distributed for the coaches with this version and have added a new feature to the coach card that will let you track the improvements in the ratings of a coach over time.

3) Rating Progression Tracking for Players

We didn’t just leave the progression tracking for the coaches either – the player card will have the same progression tracking for player ratings to see how your fabulous freshmen turn out over their careers.

4) Coach Lineage Information

Lineage is back but in a new and improved way. Now you will be able to track every coach that worked for every team and find out what happened to them over their careers. You wil be able to sort by team or by active head coach to see which legend of your association has the best coaching tree!

5) Improvements to AI in Recruiting and Tutoring

Recruiting is the key to any great college game and our recruiting AI has been honed over many years but each year we make it better and better. This year is no exception as we have worked with the AI to do an even better job of managing their resources and targeting players to up the challenge for you. The AI also does a better job of keeping poor students eligible and if you turn on the option for the AI to manage your operations it will handle tutoring of players as well.

6) UI Improvements and New Information

One of our goals is always to add new and useful information to the game. We’ve added an Assn. Info screen that will give you info about each conference and team so that you can see more information at a glance without having to hunt. The search option also remains if you have something in particular you know you’re looking for. We’ve also added a small drop box to the left window news tab to sort different news types and a few other touches here and there to make navigation easier and the screens to look even better than before!

7) Improvements to Walk-On and Recruit Generation

One additional area of improvement this season is in the generation of new recruits and walk-ons. With the recruiting improvements teams are doing a better job of filling their scholarships so the overall number of walk-ons has decreased and those that are generated are done so with a better stature for the kind of player they should be. We’ve also tweaked the recruit generation code to improve stats for players especially at smaller schools and to see that there are fewer outlier players.

8) New Asst. Coach Poaching and Job Offer Improvements

The coaching job search page now gives you more information about all of the jobs available including showing you if a team is on probation for unethical behavior. An even bigger new addition to the coaching feature is the ability to hire assistant coaches from other programs while they are employed – and it can happen to you as well! Assistant coaches who are entering their final contract year can now be lured away in the offseason for a better position. That’s great news if you like to play as the high powered schools…and you better keep some resumes handy if you’re coaching at a lower level school now.

9) Improvements in Relationship Feature

We’ve made a couple of changes here to make this feature even more interesting. The first is that your response options to the players are now changed a bit when you make a phone call to discuss their actions and secondly you’re going to get a response in the phone call to tell you how your relationship was impacted by the actions you took and the impacts vary based on the player themselves so you can never be quite sure what the reaction will be. The other change here is that we have built in some very rare incidents that you might experience to add a little bit more variety to what you deal with as coach.

10) New End Game Improvements

The last of our new items we are highlighting here has to do with end-game scenarios. We have made players try to react quicker as you can see from the screenshot above – down five with only 11 seconds left the player raced down the floor and launched a quick three. We have also worked to see that players have the ability to attempt a long range heave if possible so you never know what the closing seconds of the game will bring and nothing will be more exciting than watching your player drain one from half court to win at the buzzer!

So coach, what are you waiting for? Your destiny awaits at the top of that ladder. Take your school to the top of the basketball world, cut down the nets and build your dynasty with Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2018!

Out of the Park Developments, an official licensee of MLB.com, the MLBPA, and MiLB, announced a partnership with Electronic Arts. The partnership includes the sale of and subscription access to the award-winning baseball strategy game Out of the Park Baseball 19 for all Origin users.

[This press release is made available courtesy of OOTP Developments with slight modifications.]

“We are delighted and honored to partner with Electronic Arts to distribute our baseball game directly to EA’s biggest fans,” said OOTP Developments CEO and lead developer Markus Heinsohn. “EA’s long history of sports excellence makes Origin a tremendous platform. A whole new audience will now experience the delights and agonies of running a baseball franchise across the majors and minors, from today or throughout the entire history of the sport.”

OOTP 19 unveils a new 3D in-game engine that, for the first time, has players pitching, hitting, fielding, and running the bases in Out of the Park Baseball.

Out of the Park Baseball 19 includes:

New 3D stadiums and player models with improved on-field movements, including running, sliding, jumping, and throwing.

New in-game screen design for an optimized virtual dugout.

2018 roster sets with all Opening Day MLB rosters, as well as the complete minor league system from Triple-A to rookie leagues as well as the Arizona Fall League. All major league (and over a thousand minor league) player ratings will be based on the popular ZiPS player projection system. The 8 international leagues, as well as independent minor leagues in the US, also return this year with accurate rosters.

Rewritten scouting reports that give a more detailed and realistic look at players.

New tournament modes! Create a standalone tournament bracket and draw any teams in history into it. The possibilities are endless!

Ultra-realistic AI roster management and in-game decisions.

A reworked ratings module.

User voting for end-of-season awards

Many more improvements, including:

Redesigned interface, with the ability to choose between 6 different fonts

800 custom team logos for fictional leagues

Improved Manager Home screen, with a more customizable layout and new widget options

Here’s What To Look For In Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2018

Sports fans we are closely approaching March and you know what that means! It is time to get ready to cut down the nets and DDS: College Basketball 2018 is bringing you the biggest and best version ever to let you fulfill your dreams of taking your favorite school to the top. So get ready to hop on the recruiting trail, coach – here’s a look at ten of the newest additions to the number one college basketball franchise on the market.

1) 2017 League Conversions

Right out of the gate we’ve got some big news – those dynasties you’ve been building with CB:2017….well keep on building them! For the first time ever you’ll be able to upgrade your league files to the new version!

2) Coach Rating Tracking and Improved Increases

We’ve put work into making the increase in ratings over time better distributed for the coaches with this version and have added a new feature to the coach card that will let you track the improvements in the ratings of a coach over time.

3) Rating Progression Tracking for Players

We didn’t just leave the progression tracking for the coaches either – the player card will have the same progression tracking for player ratings to see how your fabulous freshmen turn out over their careers.

4) Coach Lineage Information

Lineage is back but in a new and improved way. Now you will be able to track every coach that worked for every team and find out what happened to them over their careers. You wil be able to sort by team or by active head coach to see which legend of your association has the best coaching tree!

5) Improvements to AI in Recruiting and Tutoring

Recruiting is the key to any great college game and our recruiting AI has been honed over many years but each year we make it better and better. This year is no exception as we have worked with the AI to do an even better job of managing their resources and targeting players to up the challenge for you. The AI also does a better job of keeping poor students eligible and if you turn on the option for the AI to manage your operations it will handle tutoring of players as well.

6) UI Improvements and New Information

One of our goals is always to add new and useful information to the game. We’ve added an Assn. Info screen that will give you info about each conference and team so that you can see more information at a glance without having to hunt. The search option also remains if you have something in particular you know you’re looking for. We’ve also added a small drop box to the left window news tab to sort different news types and a few other touches here and there to make navigation easier and the screens to look even better than before!

7) Improvements to Walk-On and Recruit Generation

One additional area of improvement this season is in the generation of new recruits and walk-ons. With the recruiting improvements teams are doing a better job of filling their scholarships so the overall number of walk-ons has decreased and those that are generated are done so with a better stature for the kind of player they should be. We’ve also tweaked the recruit generation code to improve stats for players especially at smaller schools and to see that there are fewer outlier players.

8) New Asst. Coach Poaching and Job Offer Improvements

The coaching job search page now gives you more information about all of the jobs available including showing you if a team is on probation for unethical behavior. An even bigger new addition to the coaching feature is the ability to hire assistant coaches from other programs while they are employed – and it can happen to you as well! Assistant coaches who are entering their final contract year can now be lured away in the offseason for a better position. That’s great news if you like to play as the high powered schools…and you better keep some resumes handy if you’re coaching at a lower level school now.

9) Improvements in Relationship Feature

We’ve made a couple of changes here to make this feature even more interesting. The first is that your response options to the players are now changed a bit when you make a phone call to discuss their actions and secondly you’re going to get a response in the phone call to tell you how your relationship was impacted by the actions you took and the impacts vary based on the player themselves so you can never be quite sure what the reaction will be. The other change here is that we have built in some very rare incidents that you might experience to add a little bit more variety to what you deal with as coach.

10) New End Game Improvements

The last of our new items we are highlighting here has to do with end-game scenarios. We have made players try to react quicker as you can see from the screenshot above – down five with only 11 seconds left the player raced down the floor and launched a quick three. We have also worked to see that players have the ability to attempt a long range heave if possible so you never know what the closing seconds of the game will bring and nothing will be more exciting than watching your player drain one from half court to win at the buzzer!

We hope you’re as excited for DDS: College Basketball 2018 as we are and because we’re so fired up we’ve got a special pre-order. DDS:CB 2018 is going to be available from wolverinestudios.com on February 27, 2018 but why wait? Pre-order today and you’ll lock in these great bonuses!

Go to the webstore, add CB18 to your cart and use coupon code CB18PRE and you will save 10%. Did you buy DDS:CB17 at wolverinestudios.com? Well thank you very much for doing so! We’re offering you 15% savings – just be sure that after you add the game to your cart that you put in your personal information including the same email address you used last time BEFORE entering the coupon and you use coupon code CB18UPGRADE. If you have any problem just contact support and we will be happy to help.

Everyone who pre-orders will get a free key for the game on Steam when it is released there

Everyone who pre-orders will also get access to a pre-release version of the game typically a couple of days before the official release.

So coach, what are you waiting for? Your destiny awaits at the top of that ladder. Take your school to the top of the basketball world, cut down the nets and build your dynasty with Draft Day Sports: College Basketball 2018!

The much anticipated Tournament of Champions being simulated with the new Tournament Maker feature of Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2018 is underway. If you missed out on the opening games, click here and you’ll see all the action in the blog.

MJ with 11 of Chicago’s first 15 after he blows by Jackson for a layup

The Admiral slams it home on a break to increase the San Antonio lead

Robinson with a jumper to put San Antonio up 10

Jordan with 34 now as he single handedly keeps the #1 seed in this game

Elie buries a big three to put San Antonio back on top with under 4 to go

Jordan with 43 now as he hits a triple to bring it within 1 with under a minute left

Rodman is denied once by Timmy but not twice – game tied and headed for OT

Jordan misses a FT that would put them up 3 – can San Antonio take advantage?

San Antonio can’t find a basket at the end – Chicago holds on 105-101

It took 50 from MJ to stay alive but Chicago advances to the finals

This game was so amazing it deserved its own update. The other half of the bracket will be finished up in the next post and then its on to the finals. Love to hear your thoughts on the tournament on our forum, Facebookor Twitterand don’t forget to grab yourself a copy of DDS:PB18 so head over to the webstore pronto!

Hoop fans – the season is here and with another season of Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2018. The included screenshots are from the default version of the game. Customers will be able to download real players and team logos from the contributors on the Wolverine Studios forums. But enough with the intro – lets get to the goods.

DDS:PB 2018 gets some added functionality for the user by adding options for depth chart, rotation and trading players right to the team menu so they can be accessed from many screens instead of just the roster one. Buttons have been added to travel right to your d-league affiliate team and some screens have gotten a makeover to make them more visually appealing – none more so than the draft as the draft presentation and war room have been totally redone to give you an even more immersive and exciting experience.

Historical/Statistical Additions

Player rating changes are now tracked in a database so that you can see how they have progressed over time, coach and GM hiring history has been added to the team history tracking and the array of defensive stats from prior versions of the game has made its way back – we had no idea so many people found them so interesting and useful! New scheduling has been added as well to match real life and spread out the playoff games a little bit.

Summer League Tournament

In the past the summer league games were largely meaningless – just some exhibitions run to simulate your new rookies for a couple games as well as anyone you might be scouting out for the future but that’s all changed now. Now the teams will compete in 5 or 6 matchups with the 8 best teams record wise competing in a single elimination tournament to crown a champion of the summer league.

Two-way Contracts

We’ve added our own version of two-way contracts into DDS:PB 2018. Each team will have the opportunity to sign two players to their roster on these contracts and it will allow them to stash those players exclusively in the d-league so that much like in real life you can expand the number of players your team controls. These players will be able to be called up to the normal 15 man roster and converted to league minimum contracts as well if you wish to do so.

D-League Control

Speaking of the d-league, we have added an option to give you control over your affiliate and treat them like a true extension of your team. You can leave it up to the fine folks running the team if you want or grab control of everything from the d-league draft to in-season pickups or setting the depth chart and player rotations to make sure the players you have sent there from the pro club or are stashed there on two-way contracts are getting all the minutes you want.

Free Agency Improvements

With all of the information available today teams formulate a gameplan early in the summer for their free agent strategy. Now prior to the draft you will get an email detailing the top free agents available as well as some detailed information about what they are looking for. This way if a player might be interested in you if you had the money or had another star player you have the time and opportunity to try and make some moves prior to free agency to go for it. You might even learn that the free agent you want is close with one of the players on your team and then you’ll definitely know not to trade that player away if you want a shot at bringing his buddy to town!

New Injury System

The old system of players having an injury % has been removed for a more modern day take on injuries. Players are either healthy, probable or listed as out for a number of days. The AI will act more more conservatively as in real life resting players who have injuries for meaningless regular season games but being more willing to use them if possible in the playoffs. Player ability while injured is also changed now so you will have to weigh the risk and reward of playing a “probable” player – is it worth risking a bad performance or prolonging a sickness if a player is not feeling well with the flu? Is a sore back worth missing a game or two versus having it linger with sub-optimal performances for two weeks? You’ll have to make the call.

Fantasy Draft Changes

The fantasy draft was one of the most requested areas for upgrade and we’ve done it. Now you can see the initial contracts of all the players in the grid before you draft them as well as see your team’s salary cap total so you know better how much cap space you have used up already.

Tournament Maker

Speaking of fantasy…a brand new option outside of career play is Tournament Maker mode. The sequel to Matchup Maker (which still exists in the game) will let you grab teams from a database and pit them against each other in a 16 team single elimination tournament. Tired of wondering who was the best of all-time or the best team one franchise ever had? Now you can settle it on the court.

That’s not all…

We’ve also hidden some surprises for you to find on your own – little things that will improve the game play and immersion factors and hopefully will get a “wow, that’s pretty cool” out of you when you discover them. One final thing we didn’t mention is that we’re working for the first time to be able to make DDS:PB 2017 leagues importable and all leagues being able to be carried forward from version to version from now on.

[end of Wolverines studios release]

From GM Games, we look forward to many of these enhancements coming to DDS College Basketball 2018!

What’s New For Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 2018

Hoop fans – the season is almost here and with it another season of Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball. We’re very excited to share just some of the new items you can come to expect in this year’s version. Be sure to check the blog frequently as we’ll be showing off screens, walking through some of the fun new features and be giving out info on pre-ordering as well as the final release which will be coming late this month. But enough with the intro – lets get to the goods.

UI Changes

DDS:PB 2018 gets some added functionality for the user by adding options for depth chart, rotation and trading players right to the team menu so they can be accessed from many screens instead of just the roster one. Buttons have been added to travel right to your d-league affiliate team and some screens have gotten a makeover to make them more visually appealing – none more so than the draft as the draft presentation and war room have been totally redone to give you an even more immersive and exciting experience.

Historical/Statistical Additions

Player rating changes are now tracked in a database so that you can see how they have progressed over time, coach and GM hiring history has been added to the team history tracking and the array of defensive stats from prior versions of the game has made its way back – we had no idea so many people found them so interesting and useful! New scheduling has been added as well to match real life and spread out the playoff games a little bit.

Summer League Tournament

In the past the summer league games were largely meaningless – just some exhibitions run to simulate your new rookies for a couple games as well as anyone you might be scouting out for the future but that’s all changed now. Now the teams will compete in 5 or 6 matchups with the 8 best teams record wise competing in a single elimination tournament to crown a champion of the summer league.

Two-way Contracts

We’ve added our own version of two-way contracts into DDS:PB 2018. Each team will have the opportunity to sign two players to their roster on these contracts and it will allow them to stash those players exclusively in the d-league so that much like in real life you can expand the number of players your team controls. These players will be able to be called up to the normal 15 man roster and converted to league minimum contracts as well if you wish to do so.

D-League Control

Speaking of the d-league, we have added an option to give you control over your affiliate and treat them like a true extension of your team. You can leave it up to the fine folks running the team if you want or grab control of everything from the d-league draft to in-season pickups or setting the depth chart and player rotations to make sure the players you have sent there from the pro club or are stashed there on two-way contracts are getting all the minutes you want.

Free Agency Improvements

With all of the information available today teams formulate a gameplan early in the summer for their free agent strategy. Now prior to the draft you will get an email detailing the top free agents available as well as some detailed information about what they are looking for. This way if a player might be interested in you if you had the money or had another star player you have the time and opportunity to try and make some moves prior to free agency to go for it. You might even learn that the free agent you want is close with one of the players on your team and then you’ll definitely know not to trade that player away if you want a shot at bringing his buddy to town!

New Injury System

The old system of players having an injury % has been removed for a more modern day take on injuries. Players are either healthy, probable or listed as out for a number of days. The AI will act more more conservatively as in real life resting players who have injuries for meaningless regular season games but being more willing to use them if possible in the playoffs. Player ability while injured is also changed now so you will have to weigh the risk and reward of playing a “probable” player – is it worth risking a bad performance or prolonging a sickness if a player is not feeling well with the flu? Is a sore back worth missing a game or two versus having it linger with sub-optimal performances for two weeks? You’ll have to make the call.

Fantasy Draft Changes

The fantasy draft was one of the most requested areas for upgrade and we’ve done it. Now you can see the initial contracts of all the players in the grid before you draft them as well as see your team’s salary cap total so you know better how much cap space you have used up already.

Tournament Maker

Speaking of fantasy…a brand new option outside of career play is Tournament Maker mode. The sequel to Matchup Maker (which still exists in the game) will let you grab teams from a database and pit them against each other in a 16 team single elimination tournament. Tired of wondering who was the best of all-time or the best team one franchise ever had? Now you can settle it on the court.

That’s not all…

We’ve also hidden some surprises for you to find on your own – little things that will improve the gameplay and immersion factors and hopefully will get a “wow, that’s pretty cool” out of you when you discover them. One final thing we didn’t mention is that we’re working for the first time to be able to make DDS:PB 2017 leagues importable and all leagues being able to be carried forward from version to version from now on. We hope you’re as excited for this year’s version as we are – feel free to head over to our forums and let us know what sounds the best to you!